1. Field
This application relates to texture processing methods and units of processing a compressed texel block in which texels constituting a texture are compressed into a predetermined block unit.
2. Description of Related Art
When rendering is performed on each frame of three-dimensional (3D) graphics, many computations are performed, thereby requiring high power and many hardware resources. Accordingly, it is desirable to reduce the number of computations when performing 3D graphics rendering.
To reduce the number of computations and increase a rendering speed during pixel shading in 3D graphics rendering, a graphics processing unit (GPU) includes a texture processing unit.
The texture processing unit generates a texture needed for texturing. Texturing by applying a previously prepared image to an object formed in a 3D space is one process in 3D graphics rendering for reducing the number of computations. The previously prepared image is referred to as a texture, and the texture may be previously prepared in a compressed form in a memory outside the texture processing unit.
The texture processing unit transmits a texture requested by a shader core after receiving a compressed texel block in which texels constituting the texture are compressed into a predetermined block unit from the memory and processing the compressed texel block.